You’ve heard us talk about the very affordable and well done beer dinners that take place at the Florence and Fort Wright Izzy’s locations. We really enjoyed the last one which featured beers from Carsons Brewery out of Evansville, IN. We’re guessing many of you will be heading to Izzy’s for one of their award-winning Corned Beef Sandwiches next Tuesday for Saint Patrick’s Day. We especially love their reubens – corned beef on rye with sauerkraut and Izzy’s Special Sauce.

You may have already been there for one of their Cod Lenten Specials too. Fish and corned beef really are the go-to foods for this time of year, right? But what would be the perfect beer to pair with each of those two foods? Well, the kind folks at Izzy’s have given us a $25 gift card to giveaway to a Hoperatives reader who suggests a great beer to pair with either corned beef or cod.

To enter, just post a comment on this post with your beer pairing. Be sure to include your email address so we can contact you if you win. You can enter twice with one beer pairing for corned beef and then another for cod.

Sharing the link to this contest on Facebook or Twitter will also get you an entry as long as you use the hashtag #IzzysCincy You can also tag Izzy’s on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Deadline is Tuesday, March 17th (Saint Patrick’s Day) at 5:00 pm. We can’t wait to see your beer pairings!

— Carla and Tom

*Izzy’s has provided us with the $25 gift card to giveaway as well as a $25 gift card for our own use.

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Now that Cincy Winter Beerfest, Cincinnati Beer Week and Bockfest are all in our rear view mirror, we can look ahead to the annual All About Stout Fest to be held for the fourth time at Molly Malone’s Covington from 12:00 noon until 4:00 pm Saturday, March 14th. This event is limited to just 300 attendees and only 125 VIPs which makes it easier for you to get to the stout beers that you want.

For $20, you get a souvenir pint glass, six tasting tickets that are each good for a five ounce pour of any of the non-VIP stouts and one full pint of any of the non-VIP stouts. You can purchase additional five ounce pours for $2 each and additional full pints for $4 each (again the VIP stouts are excluded from this).

For $30, you can get one of the 125 VIP tickets that are being sold. You get everything listed for the regular ticket plus you are guaranteed a five ounce pour of the four rare stouts: Goose Island Bourbon County Stout, Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout (2014 edition), Three Floyds Blot Out the Sun Stout and Oskar Blues Ten Fidy Stout (aged since 2013). These four beers will be made available for non-VIP attendees if there is any left at 2:00 pm.

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We frequently get updates for our This Week in Beer post after our regular 9:00 am publishing time. Any edited listing will have UPDATE at the beginning of the listing. NEW – Check out our new Better Beer Happy Hours, Etc. page for regularly scheduled specials on better beer.

Monday, March 9th – Mug Night Monday at Flipdaddy’s Union

Monday, March 9th – 1/3 off craft beer bottles at Moerlein Lager House

Wednesday, March 11th from 5:30 to 8:00 pm – Beer Tasting at Marty’s Hops and Vines

Thursday, March 12th – Firkin Thursday at Fifty West

Thursday, March 12th – Tap That Thursday at BrewRiver GastroPub

Thursday, March 12th from 4:00 pm to close – Take Home the Glass Night at Taste of Belgium Clifton

Thursday, March 12th at 6:00 pm – Slam vs. JuJu: A Hop Off/Beer of the Month Club Launch Party at the Growler House
From Facebook: “Join us as we launch our Beer of the Month Club in style.. by tapping Hop Slam and Hop JuJu! Beer of the Month Club details: It’s $25/month, Packaged beer (not draft), You get at least $25 worth of beer, Any 3 Floyds that we get in 6 packs or bombers are automatically reserved for BOTMC. You can sign up for any duration (1 month – indefinitely). Includes the newest, rarest, most unique beer we can find. Also includes tasting notes, food pairing suggestions, a brewery pint glass and any other brewery swag we can get our hands on. You’ll also get inside information on special keg tappings that are coming up. **only 12 spots available for the first month** How to sign up? Call 513 580 8277 or stop in! Make sure to ask for Andrew!”

Friday, March 13th at 5:00 pm – Ain’t no Party like a Coolship Party! at Rivertown Brewing
From Facebook: “Join us in celebrating the 1st 30bbl Coolship fermentation in Ohio with Funk Factory Geuzeria from WI! A Coolship is a large, open, stainless steel vessel used to draw wild yeast and bacteria into the wort while it cools, spontaneous fermentation at its most spontaneous! The taproom will be open and viewing of the coolship will be available from 5p-7p. Learn more about FFG and this unique art form at www.funkfactorygeuzeria.com”

It’s impossible to feel anything but happy for the brewing team of Evan Rouse, Richard Dubé, Conan Crofoot, Dave Dixon and Mike Roszkowski. We were down there yesterday and the vibe was equal parts excitement and sleep deprivation. My guess is that the first brew day will be before Monday. They were being pretty close-to-the-vest about specifics. It’s tempting to want a lot of hoopla over it, but the reality is that the only folks who really need to be there are the ones who’ve devoted so much to it over the last few months and years. It’s going to be a special moment for them. I truly hope they savor it. The brewing team that’s been assembled is genetically incapable of making a bad beer.

Greg and Tina Rouse once again spent their wedding anniversary yesterday cleaning up clutter and mess their kids (along with a bunch of contractors) were making. Jake Rouse and Marketing Director Jonathan Gandolf faced each other over the tops of their laptops with solemn looks on their faces. They were probably doing Very Serious Work™. But they could have just as easily been trying to figure out how to rewrite the Gettysburg Address to work in the phrases “we can’t wait,” “we’re excited” and “lift one to life.” It’s hard to say. I know they call it staying on message. I call it a new drinking game.

So we’re excited that we know when we’ll be able to grab a beer at Braxton and lift it to life. Maybe we’ll even figure out what that means. And we can’t wait for you to read this press release:

You will soon be able to “Lift One to Life” in Northern Kentucky and the greater Cincinnati area. After over a year of preparation, Braxton Brewing Company is thrilled to announce that they will open on Friday, March 27th, 2015. On this date, Northern Kentucky’s first free-standing microbrewery will host a grand opening party at their taproom and begin distribution with Stagnaro Distributing.

“Words can’t quite express how truly excited we are to open these doors and share our beer with the community that has lifted us up over the past year,” said Co-Founder and Braxton Brewing Company CEO, Jake Rouse. “It’s going to be a very special day.”

The doors will open at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 27th. Programming will begin at 7 p.m. The event highlights will include: four of Braxton’s beers on tap, Keith Neltner and the Neltner Small Batch team revealing his largest indoor installation, two local bands, and tours of the brewery. More event details can be found on Braxton Brewing Company’s Facebook page.

“We’re incredibly proud to be partnering with Braxton Brewing Company on creating and launching their brand. Our work on the foundation, naming, identity, writing, signage, and ultimately the large scale mural that adorns the concrete block bar in Covington is some of our most dramatic work to date,” said Keith Neltner of Neltner Small Batch. “So, let’s Lift One to Life.”

Two of the company’s flagship beers will be available on the 27th. Storm Golden Cream Ale, and Jumper Hoppy Wheat Ale will be available in the taproom and across the company’s distribution network.

“Storm and Jumper are both truly unique beers, and our team has been working for the better half of a year to perfect these recipes,” said Evan Rouse, Co-Founder and Head Brewer “We can’t wait for you to try them!”

Since announcing their plans on April 7th, 2014, the Braxton team has been working on renovating the 100-year old building located at 27 W 7th St in Covington. The taproom will feature a 20-tap draft system, a PEGAS growler filler, a state of the art Special Events Room, and more.

The taproom, which was introduced during a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, has been referenced to as “The Taproom of the Future.” Technologies such as gigabit internet, social media experiences, and the best-in-class mobile application will bring this vision to life.

“The taproom of the future is about experiencing beer in a whole new way. We’ve been hard at work with our development partner, New Coast Ventures, to bring this vision to life.” said Jake Rouse. “We want people to learn more about our beer, stay up-to-date on what’s happening in the beer drinking community, and easily find Braxton beer on tap.”

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All of this information came from Bockfest.com. We just combined the information there into one hour-by-hour schedule of the beer related events. Unless otherwise indicated, all Bockfest 2015 events are free and open to the public (no cover). Don’t forget the free Bockfest shuttle is available all weekend (See map).

For the first time, Bockfest 2015 is offering a variety of special packages this year. There is one for the beer lover, the food lover and the history lover plus the Bockfest Experience and the Bockfest Booster Pass. Be sure to check them out at Bockfest.com.

Bockfest is the best weekend of the year for Cincinnati to celebrate itself. There are other great events in town, to be sure, but it’s impossible to name another like Bockfest. It blends the city’s unique heritage, its sense of fun and, most importantly, what it’s becoming. It’s held to celebrate a seasonal style of beer, but it’s been nurtured by its organizers to become one of the best urban festival weekends in the country that no one outside the region knows about.

It’s been well-covered elsewhere that longtime “Bockfest Czar” Mike Morgan is stepping down after this year, He has guided the event from near-oblivion to what it is today. And one time he helped guide the parade through a blizzard. A decade of playing ringmaster to a 15-ring, sometimes inebriated, circus is enough for anyone, so his decision to hang up his porkpie is perfectly understandable. There’s precedent. A pope stepped down, after all. “Czar Emeritus” has a ring to it, doesn’t it? Brewery District Executive Director Steve Hampton is poised to take the reins as Czar, so the transition should be smooth.

The parade is a true spectacle. The way it’s been embraced by the community is something truly special. There’s a good argument that the Opening Day Parade is even more embedded in the city’s DNA, but the Bockfest Parade is a People’s Parade. Fake monks. Real monks. Fake goats. Real goats. A motorized bathtub. What else could you possibly require in a parade? It steps off from Arnold’s at 6pm on Friday and makes its way up Main Street, crossing Liberty and eventually finding its way to Bockfest Hall, adjacent to the Christian Moerlein brewery and Malt House taproom.

There are practical reasons the parade starts at Arnold’s and ends near Christian Moerlein, but there’s a symbolism there as well. No one in the city is more responsible for the survival of Bockfest than Arnold’s owner Ronda Breeden. If Mike Morgan has been the czar, Ronda is the Queen Mother (because no one puts the Sausage Queen in the corner). On the other end of the route you have Christian Moerlein owner Greg Hardman. Bockfest started as a promotional effort of the Hudepohl-Shoenling Brewing Company to help promote its then-new Christian Moerlein line of beers, especially its Bock. Barrelhouse Brewing took over the reins for a few years when the venerable Hudy brands wandered in the wilderness, but Bockfest gained an enthusiastic ally the day Greg brought the Moerlein name back under local ownership and made it his flagship. His efforts have led to a place for Bockfest Hall to call home from year-to-year, a development that has helped solidify the event in the civic consciousness. Call him the Bockfest Grand Master. What about longtime Sausage Queen emcee (and Milton’s Prospect Hill Tavern owner) Kevin Feldman? What royal court would be complete without a Jester?

The number of events and venues have grown so much in the last decade. There was a time the Prohibition Resistance Tours didn’t exist. When there were just a handful of venues (as opposed to the twenty there are this year). Heck, there was a time when you had to explain what a Sausage Queen was. OK, so you still have to explain that, but that’s what makes Bockfest … Bockfest. This year there will fun (and even informative) programs Saturday afternoon at both the newly-restored Woodward Theater and at Bockfest Hall itself. There will be the first Cincinnati Superfowl (the finals of the Christian Moerlein Fowling League). And, of course, the Sausage Queen Finals. Sunday sees the rebirth of “Continental Sundays,” a tradition going back to the days when beer legally couldn’t be sold on Sundays (but was anyway).

Hovering over the entire event — like Gambrinus overseeing his happy subjects — is Bock beer. It may be the ultimate seasonal style. It’s why good German monks didn’t give up beer for Lent. They gave up eating pretty much everything else and lived on Bock. Bock beer. It’s not the reason for the season, but it’s a pretty good #2. So tomorrow we’ll make our way to Arnold’s and Bockfest Hall and spend the weekend at Cincinnati’s own festival. It looks like good weather this year. Come out and join us.

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Good news! If you missed our beer trivia during Cincinnati Beer Week, you have another chance AND it’s part of a great new event at Bockfest this year. Join brewers and representatives from Bad Tom Smith, Blank Slate, Christian Moerlein, Ei8ht Ball, Fifty West, Hudepohl, Listermann, MadTree, Rhinegeist, Rivertown, Schoenling, Triple Digit and Wiedemann plus beer bloggers like Jesse Folk from WCPO and us for the first ever Bockfest Bock Beer Experience / Bock Beer Tasting on Saturday, March 7th from 1:00-6:00 pm.

The event is free to attend, individual 3oz drink tickets are $2 and it’s $25 for 15 3oz tickets and that includes a Bockfest pint glass. Tickets are now available at: http://www.bockfest.com/bock-beer-tasting/

We frequently get updates for our This Week in Beer post after our regular 9:00 am publishing time. Any edited listing will have UPDATE at the beginning of the listing. NEW – Check out our new Better Beer Happy Hours, Etc. page for regularly scheduled specials on better beer.

Monday, March 2nd – Mug Night Monday at Flipdaddy’s Union

Monday, March 2nd – 1/3 off craft beer bottles at Moerlein Lager House

Monday, March 2nd – Randall Monday at the Brass Tap U Square

Monday, March 2nd at 5:00 pm – Rare Keg Monday at Ei8ht Ball Brewing

Monday, March 2nd at 6:00 pm – Beer of the Month Tapping at Moerlein Lager House
This month, it’s their Lab Lager #3 and it’s benefiting the Over-The-Rhine Brewery District.

Monday, March 2nd at 7:00 pm – Rogue Beer Tasting & Dinner at BJ’s Restaurant and Brew House Florence
Eight beers (six from Rogue and two from BJ’s), four courses for $30 for prepaid reservations, $35 day of event. Reserve online at their web site.

Monday, March 2nd from 8:00 pm to close – Pint Night at Incline Public House

Tuesday, March 3rd – Penny Flips at Fifty West

Tuesday, March 3rd – Tappa Keg Tuesday at Dingle House

Tuesday, March 3rd – $8 Growler Fills at Moerlein Lager House

Tuesday, March 3rd – Infusion Special at the Brass Tap U Square

Tuesday, March 3rd from 5:00-7:00 pm – Meet the Brewer at Barleycorn’s
This week, it’s TBA at their Lakeside Park location and TBA at their Florence location.

Wednesday, March 4th from 5:30 to 8:00 pm – Beer Tasting at Marty’s Hops and Vines

Thursday, March 5th – Firkin Thursday at Fifty West

Thursday, March 5th – Tap That Thursday at BrewRiver GastroPub

Thursday, March 5th at 4:00 pm – Oskar Blues Pinner Tapping at The Lackman
Pinner is a session IPA.

Thursday, March 5th from 4:00 pm to close – Take Home the Glass Night at Taste of Belgium Clifton

Thursday, March 5th at 6:00 pm – Schoenling Bock Tapping at Mecklenburg’s Gardens
This brew is the winner of the previous year’s Bockfest homebrew competition put on by the Bloatarian Brewing League. Special dinner buffet will be available as well.

Friday, March 6th-Sunday, March 8th – Bockfest 2015
As we always do, we’ll be posting the events for each day.

Friday, March 6th – $8 Growler Fills at Christian Moerlein Brewery

Friday, March 6th at 5:30 pm – Beer and Wine Tasting at Everything’s d’ Vine
$10 per person to taste five beers and four wines. $5 to taste just beer or just wine.

Friday, March 6th from 6:00-7:00 pm – Friday Night Flights Beer Tasting at Party Town in Florence

Saturday, March 7th at 12:00 pm – The Return of the Tiger (Saber Tooth Tiger) at Rhinegeist
Available in 22oz bombers that are limited to two per person. They will not be filling growlers, howlers, or crowlers.

Saturday, March 7th from 5:00-8:00pm – Beer Tasting at Ludlow Wines
The cost to taste four beers is $6.00 per person.

We frequently get updates for our Tastings and Tappings Report after our regular publishing time. Any edited listing will have UPDATE at the beginning of the listing. Don’t forget to check out our This Week in Beer post from Monday for other better beer events happening this weekend.

Don’t forget the Eleven/162 Anniversary Party & Bottle Release at the Christian Moerlein Malt House tomorrow starting at 6:00 pm. More information available on their Facebook event page – https://www.facebook.com/events/897596250281122

TASTINGS

● Everything’s d’ Vine – Tasting is at 5:30 pm each week and costs $10 for beer and wine tastings. You can get just beer or just wine for $5.00. For this week’s tasting (2/27), it’s all beers from Bluegrass Brewing Company: Louisville Lager, Nut Brown Ale, American Pale Ale and Bourbon Barrel Stout.

● Moerlein Lager House – Their March Beer of the Month Tapping (3/2) is Lab Lager #3. One dollar from each Lab Lager #3 order plus 100% of the proceeds from ceremonial keg will go to the Over-the-Rhine Brewery District.

UPDATE: Greg Hardman just emailed to say that Christian Moerlein Red Hop Mess won the bronze at the New York International Beer Competition in the Imperial India Pale Ale category. Congratulations!

The Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. announces the expansion of their popular craft beer can lineup with one of their most successful new brands, Red Hop Mess Red IPA. Red Hop Mess was originally launched in November 2014 in six-pack bottles and draft and quickly gained popularity after being listed as one of the top craft beers in the State of Ohio. The beer will be available beginning February 27th throughout greater Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Cleveland, Lexington and Louisville in 12 ounce cans featuring artwork from Cincinnati artist, Jim Effler.

Moerlein Red Hop Mess Red IPA fits into the India Pale Ale category and is a well-balanced hop forward beer with a citrusy aroma and a sweet malt grain bill. The recipe for Red Hop Mess came from a collaboration of the Christian Moerlein brewing team, striving for a unique and innovation IPA. Vital Stats include: OG: 15.9, ABV 7.2%, SRM 11 and IBUs of 83. Christian Moerlein Head Brewer, Tom Hull, explains that flavor and aroma as, “Sweet lightly toasted malt with a blast of citrus hops that has a hint of pine in the finish.”

The Jim Effler artwork featured on the can depicts a team of mad scientists working in the lab of the brewery, reveling in the glory of the hoppy wonder they have created. The Cans description states:

Just like the creations of a mad scientist, brewing an exceptional beer requires the dynamic blend of art, science, and a touch of crazy innovation. Our team of craft brewers collaborated on this unique red IPA with a recipe bearing the perfect fusion of malt and a mad dose of Amarillo hops. The result, Red Hop Mess – a stroke of pure genius with just the right amount of madness.

Christian Moerlein’s Red Hop Mess has seen overwhelmingly positive feedback from the market in the first three months of the brand’s existence.